Products Comparison

Data/Tags vs. Catalog

The "data" products - Xdata and InData - and "tags" product - Xtags - are document building tools, while the "catalog" products - Xcatalog Pro and InCatalog Pro (perhaps misleadingly named) - are document linking/updating tools, and only incidentally helpful at document building (by automating aspects of manual catalog assembly).

To be more specific, if you have a bunch of raw or tagged data that you'd like to turn into a printable document, then you'd use either the "data" or "tags" tools.

If, on the other hand, you have a document whose contents (e.g., prices) need to be updated in place from a data source, or extracted as they appear in the document to a data destination, then you'd use the "catalog" tools.

Data vs. Tags

The "data" tools take raw, row- or record-oriented data, as found in a spreadsheet or in a database (pre-sorted in the required order), and flow in each record through a template you write, very much like a mail merge. The data tools thus give you complete control of formatting in the document itself (in the template, to be exact).

The "tags" tools, on the other hand, take text that has been tagged somewhere - either by hand or with other software tools - with tags that specify the formatting and required box creation and filling, etc., and flow it in, creating a document as they go. The tags tools thus give you complete control of the formatting externally, in some other application.

So it all comes down to where you want to do the work, and where you want to have control over the formatting.

Data/Tags plus Catalog

Using both products in tandem - "data" or "tags" plus "catalog" - gives you the best of both worlds: you can automatically create ("data" or "tags") a document with linked items which can be updated ("catalog") bi-directionally (changes made in the document update to your data source, and vice versa).

News
•	InDesign CS 2 plug-in betas continuing, now with Mac OS versions
•	Mailing lists are back
•	Xtags for InDesign 3.0.1 beta 2 available
•	InCatalog 2/3.2.2 beta 3 released
•	Xtags for QuarkXPress 4/6.2.2 beta 2 available
•	Xcatalog and Xcatalog Pro 4/6.2.2 beta 1 available
	(more...)